


Words From The Void

by VoidWhisperer



Category: Original Work, Poetry - Fandom
Genre: Dreams, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Gender Identity, Insecurity, Mental Illness, Original Poetry - Freeform, Personal Growth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:51:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11077242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoidWhisperer/pseuds/VoidWhisperer
Summary: A collection of original poetry chronicling a bunch of my life experiences.





	1. She Was A Girl...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a 9th grade poetry slam (before I came out, hence the wrong pronouns)

Once upon a time, there was a girl.  
I’m sure you know how the story’s supposed to end:  
A prince or knight in shining armor  
Saves the day and marries the girl.

But that’s not how it works in real life.

She was a girl of art.  
Sprawling drawings peeled off the white, dog-eared paper—  
Twisted creations took on forms… voices…  
Stories.  
She was a girl of imagination.  
And these drawings were her only friends  
Because… she was a girl of loneliness.

She was a girl of love.  
Red lips… black dress… a swing in her step…  
Sharing broken dreams with a boy  
All because of three… little… words:  
“I love you.”  
For her… those words meant the world.

She was a girl of trust,  
Holding everyone in such high regards  
That she didn’t even see it coming.  
The cold knife of betrayal slipped (oh… so delicately) between  
Two slim, white ribs—  
Just high enough to pierce her  
Spun-sugar heart.

She was a girl of insecurity  
A cruel twist of fate made her believe,  
For the first time in her life, that she was ugly  
Because media told her that she had to be skinny  
And curvy at the same time.  
Maybe that—  
That was why he left.  
Maybe that was why… even when he returned to her in due time,  
She couldn’t accept his love, or anyone else’s,  
No matter how hard she tried.  
Blood was her savior.  
Because she was a girl of self-destruction.

Yet… for all her struggles, she is a girl of dreams.  
Wishful thinking paints a future of endless possibilities:  
Steam-powered automatons… airship pirates…  
Or more realistically, college, love, and a job.  
One day… she wants to get married,  
Have children…  
And ride off into the sunset just like that fairytale princess.  
Never again to suffer at the hands of others.

Because...

She is a girl of hope.


	2. March 10, 2016 - A Love Story

It’s seven in the morning  
And I’m not dressed.  
My phone vibrates against the nightstand  
Thunderous in the silence of my early-morning blues.  
I would rather curl up beneath the two comforters—teal and crimson—  
And thick, warm quilt—forest green with evergreens and roaming caribou—on my bed  
Than look at my messages  
But I do it anyway.  
I don’t expect to see your name,  
So when I do, my heart warms  
And a smile tugs at my reluctant lips.

It’s just past noon.  
The sun shines brightly overhead,  
Warming the earth with its rays.  
Rather than take the bus and arrive early for our meeting—  
It would be in bad taste to do so—  
I walk two miles to see your smile  
And still arrive early with a box of donuts under my arm and a half-hour to draw in the shade.  
I try to capture your face on the pages of my sketchbook  
But to no avail.  
You shine too brightly for the dull graphite of my 0.5 mechanical pencil.  
My skirt blows in the breeze as I wait;  
It’s white, not dripping black like my sorrow.  
You are the only one to ever make me feel beautiful  
When wearing white.

It’s two in the afternoon  
And I see you coming down the street towards me,  
Your old leather jacket hanging loosely on your thin frame–  
I remember the day you bought it, a crisp November afternoon of trampolines, frozen yogurt, and mango green tea—  
Earbuds in, smiling.  
You take them out as you draw near and greet me.  
I flush red—fifty shades of red.  
You sit by my side and we talk about school, about art, about life,  
And about college.  
You’re not staying in Minnesota after high school.  
You’d rather go away to California—away from the cold, away from your parents,  
Away from me.   
I want to scream.

It’s three in the afternoon,   
And you joke about a wedding we first spoke of on Monday night.  
I hadn’t meant to ask you if you would marry me—it was a joke  
But you took it too far.  
I’m only seventeen,  
Too young to bind my heart to yours for eternity—  
Eternity only because I could never bear to leave once I had you.  
Later, we’re on the bus to your house,  
And the man sitting next to us is listening to his music so loudly  
It’s a wonder the moon can’t hear.  
I complain that everyone on the bus must have terrible taste in music.  
You glance at me and tell me to name the bands you like.  
I stutter, unable to answer, and you laugh.  
“You don’t know anything about me,” you say to me  
And I realize it’s true. Why, then, do I want to cry when you say those words?

It’s four in the afternoon   
And we’re walking by the lake on the way to your house.  
You tease me endlessly about my strange fixation on every tiny, insignificant thing you do,  
And jokingly pull me close as though we are two lovers, not two friends  
Walking down the twisting path of a life gone horribly wrong—  
Also known as Uptown.  
I shriek and draw away, running halfway down the block to avoid your touch.  
I am afraid—  
Afraid to give in and find myself lost in your arms.  
We find ourselves talking about pirates and fairies and kinks,   
And I don’t want to know what you get off on  
So don’t make assumptions about what I like.  
Whips and chains don’t excite me.  
It’s you.   
Only you.

It’s five in the evening.  
I’ve been to your house three times now,   
But it’s never felt so frightening.  
Not even at the dinner party when I saw you with another girl—  
She was fairer than I, which sent daggers through my heart, lungs, and small intestine—  
Now even that seems trivial  
In this emptiness that I’ve never grown used to.  
This is a house that’s too big for two.  
Or even two and a dog.  
You offer me a drink—I only take water—then sit and play guitar,  
Showing off the meager skills you learned from an app on your iPhone.  
You stumble over the chords, and I can’t help but think that I could have played them better  
If only your instrument was a piano.  
Still, my heart melts. I have never heard a song more beautiful,  
Save for the sound of your voice.

It’s six in the evening,  
And we’re in your bedroom  
Browsing anime on Netflix. We skim for a bit, then choose a show;  
It’s your favorite one, and I’ve never seen it,  
So obviously, I have to.  
You lean back against the pillows, and I lay curled up beside you,   
My arms wrapped around a pillow—I pretend it’s you, as childish as that seems.  
The videos won’t load, and you remember I’m ticklish—  
Why that, of all things?   
You reach for me, and in a rush to push you away,   
I find myself somehow pressed against your chest,  
My skirt bunched around my hips.   
I’ve never felt so embarrassed.

It’s precisely eight-thirty  
And I’m standing just inside your door.   
My coat is open and my boots unlaced. My backpack is on the floor next to me,   
Forlorn and neglected.  
I smile weakly.  
“You owe me a hug,” I murmur awkwardly.  
Yes, only a hug. A warm embrace for that one-minute self-portrait you drew on Wednesday  
For your art class, the one you didn’t like much.   
I promised you a hug when you told me how much you loathed that assignment.  
Yesterday, I hadn’t been expecting to see you for three weeks  
But somehow, I’m here right now, in your arms.  
For me, this hug is the only thing keeping me alive.

It’s two in the morning,  
Twelve whole hours since I first saw you walking towards me  
Your messy blond hair shining in the sunlight.  
Lying in bed, I wonder why I had to lie   
Every time you pointed out my obsession with you—  
My crush.  
And then I realize why:  
It was the feeling of desperation when you said you wouldn’t stay.  
It was the feeling of dejection when you teased and tempted me,   
Then laughed and said it was all a joke.  
It was too hard for me to speak the words I wanted to   
When you said you knew that I loved you:  
“Why would I love you when I know you’ll break my heart?”

But I do   
Love   
You.


	3. Untitled

When I first met you, I didn’t feel butterflies  
Nor was I rent speechless at the sight of you.  
You never quite managed to sweep me off my feet   
Or make my heart threaten to beat its way out of my aching chest.  
But that was then. And I never expected  
To now be torn from sleep with visions of you,  
To feel everything and nothing all at once  
Simply because you were not there beside me  
Whispering sweet nothings in my ear with   
Your face buried in the crook of my neck,  
Traces of stubble scratching against my skin—  
Because as much as I’d like to linger in fragile childhood   
As the world falls down around me, I must admit that  
You’re not the awkward boy I met at the start of tenth grade  
And I’m no longer the strange boy-girl with trails of inky darkness  
Dripping from my fingertips  
In place of blood.


	4. Kleptomania

Hands  
Small and pudgy,  
rosy knuckles  
shoved deep in pockets  
but not from cold.  
Short fingers clutch  
tightly at a lollipop  
pinched from  
the bulk bin.  
Shifting eyes  
occasionally drift down  
to the small treasure.

Hands,  
slender-fingered and   
still small,  
cut tags with a razor.  
Bright beads and   
glittering rhinestones  
slip into the darkness  
of a leather bag,   
past the customers,  
cashiers,  
security guards,  
and at last, out in the open.  
A thrilled gasp  
emerges in the night air.  
In dark, shimmering eyes,  
one thing:  
pride.

Hands,  
older, more secure.  
Practiced.  
The hands of an adult.  
Lipstick and lingerie,   
jewels and fine clothes  
There on a shelf,  
then gone in a blink,  
a laugh,   
and a wink.  
Bottles of hard liquor,  
wallets and rings;  
at home, they’re kept   
in the closet,  
on the table,  
under the bed,  
in the kitchen,  
everywhere.  
Years of compulsion,  
and these meaningless stolen treasures   
litter   
every step of the way.


	5. Stars

I had the nightmare again.

We sat on the beach,   
Pale skin glowing against pale sand  
Staring up at the stars—  
Except the sky wasn’t the sky.   
It was the ocean,   
And the stars were glowing human hearts,   
Each one pulsing with the tide.   
Instead of waves, the wind lapped at our feet   
And threatened to pull us into the abyss.

We spoke quietly, lest the wind should   
Steal away our voices,  
And gestured at the heart-stars with the eagerness of children,  
Giving names to the constellations,  
Weaving stories for those who would come after us.  
Then, silence.  
We lay back in the sand and slept,  
Our bodies entwined.

I awoke alone.  
I do not know how—I only know that  
I turned to you for comfort and you had vanished.  
All that remained were wisps of smoke,  
Delicate tendrils that danced about my fingers,   
Taunting me.  
The vastness of my surroundings swept in,   
Tugging my hair and heartstrings every which way,  
And I had never felt so alone.  
Or frightened.

I open my eyes and the dream shatters.  
I lie in bed, enveloped in darkness,  
My body still shivering   
Beneath a quilt and two blankets.  
My heart still beats far too quickly  
And my eyes run wet with tears—  
I don’t understand why.  
Around me, music roars.

In a land of gods and monsters,  
There was an angel—  
An angel who could not sleep for fear of what  
Hellish things dreams would bring.


	6. Untitled (Culture Ramblings)

I.  
America has a way of sucking the culture out of you.  
Language and art, song and spellcraft blur   
Into inscrutable effigies of exoticism.  
In darkened rooms,  
Our people of color cling to their rituals  
That parallel the already-forgotten traditions of Caucasian conquerors  
And our mixed-race children struggle to escape a riptide.  
Cultureless.  
White foam  
Threatens to erase them from existence.

II.  
I grew up surrounded by all of the food  
But none of the culture.  
Making yakisoba and agedashi tofu with my eyes closed   
At the family restaurant  
But unable to use chopsticks.  
I ate with a fork while my ancestors looked on in disgrace.

III.  
My mother told me not to worry  
When I cried that I could not tell her “I love you”  
In the tongue of her motherland.  
She told me it meant so much more to her  
In English—  
This broken language built on appropriated words  
And the suffering of minorities.  
I did not understand.

IV.  
The otaku girl in my class is speaking again—  
She never shuts her mouth.  
Her voice is too harsh to pronounce the delicate syllables  
Of the language I love as a part of my soul.  
I want to scream, “this is my language you’ve stolen”  
But my voice cracks.   
It is not my language.  
I have no claim to the words she is speaking.  
Somehow she, in her whiteness,  
Is more entitled to my culture than I,  
A little yellow boy with sloe-black eyes.


	7. A Letter To The Man Who Hates Me

I never needed your poison to make me feel small;  
My mind did that on its own.  
You only sped up the process.  
I saw your face and the walls closed in around me,  
Suffocating,  
Forcing me to find shelter in the only place I knew:  
The edge of a knife and the bottom of a bottle.  
Anxiety gives me my own set of demons.  
Insecure, you called me.  
Immature.

As if I chose to be hurt by what you said,  
What you did in darkened corners   
While my eyes clouded over with light from another dimension.  
There was no consent when you broke my mind  
Raped my sanity and sent me further over the edge.  
I remember clearly: we parted on good terms  
But you proved yourself a liar once more  
Dripping poisoned potions into the eyes of those who loved me—  
Loved us—  
Until they no longer remembered who broke who.

That was then.  
A year, two years later, the demons still haunt me.  
They pull at my hair, pinch my toes,  
And whisper obscenities through my fingers even as I cover my ears with my hands.  
They bring darkness wherever they go,   
But the razors and liquor remain in the past.  
When I see your face, the walls stay put,  
And one night the beautiful shooting star that passed by my window burst,  
Scattering light into the eyes of those who loved me,  
Washing away the poison you left behind.

I needed your poison to help me grow.  
So stand there with your head held high  
Your eyes glimmering darkly with veiled threats.  
Let arrogance spill from your soul and run rampant,  
Let it pierce my heart and leave me bleeding on the floor,  
But I will not turn and run.  
I’ve fought the demons in my mind.  
They no longer frighten me   
And now that I have returned stronger than before,  
Neither do you.


	8. (Imaginary) Friends

Real friends are hard to keep.  
They chatter and gossip and   
There’s always someone they like more than you.  
I’ve always been the backup friend,  
The one whose dreams were shit on by everyone else.  
“Why are you so obsessed with _______?”  
(Insert obsession here. For me, it was always   
Broadway musicals and stories I took too long to write,  
The characters spilling over from my computer screen  
To the pages of my sketchbook   
And into the words that overflowed from my lips   
With enthusiasm matched only by the boredom   
And hatred my so-called friends  
Felt when I let these obsessions show.)  
How do you remain close to the people you love  
When they make you feel ashamed of being yourself?

In school, I was the lonely boy.  
I sat in the corner  
Playing games with goblins and   
Dancing with fae in glass bubbles.  
Cowslip, Sycamore, Ruby, Trilluim—  
Little sprites with the names of plants and jewels.  
They were all in my mind,  
But that was the way I liked it.  
When I was young, my imaginary friends were as innocent as I,  
Sweet and bright as dewdrops,  
But they grew with me,  
Becoming dark and twisted,  
Corrupted by my pain.

Today I dance with demons.  
Alone at home, I grind herbs to dust   
And steep them in oil with precious stones,  
Making salves and tinctures under Decarabia’s tutelage—  
They were always gentle with me,   
Even when I once confused clover for wood sorrel  
And ruined the potion.  
Samael guides my wrath, sharpening my mind  
And incantations  
Until my curses fly true,  
Striking human hearts with the icy venom  
Of eighteen years’ loneliness and the pain of betrayal—  
The poison of God at its best.  
I sing with Na’amah and Amdusias.  
Though my voice often cracks, they are kind  
And feed me honey and ginger tea until my notes ring.  
They taught me to sing my favorite songs when   
My human friends would sigh and cover their ears.  
Tanin’iver has become a butler in his aeons of service to Lady Lilith.  
Though he is blind, his hands move deftly,  
Giving me confidence.  
With him, I tend the cook-fire, baking sweet cakes  
To eat while I labor over cut gems and loose feathers,  
Acrylic paint and India ink,  
Making art to ease my pain.  
Ashmodai sends me fantasies to fill the empty moments  
Between one thought and the next.  
At night, Lilith herself holds me close.  
Child-killer she may be, but   
Her lullabies banish my nightmares  
And bring my dreams to life. 

Reality is cold  
And truth be told, I lost all hope of survival long ago.  
Perhaps that is why the demons flock to me  
Like moths to a flame:  
They sense the perpetual emptiness of my soul  
And feed on it.  
Perhaps I am simply a meal,  
And when I finally take my life with a razor or a noose  
They will move on  
To the next poor soul without hope.  
Still, I like to think they have brought color to my life,  
Have given me a reason to wake up in the morning,   
To laugh, and to cry.  
With them, I no longer feel alone.  
My true friends live in my mind,   
And they will stay with me till my dying breath.


	9. The Void Whispers Back

Sometimes, I hear voices.

Sweet words like red roses,  
Their petals dripping with golden rivulets  
Of virgin honey  
And mulled cider.

Secretive murmurs like owl feathers   
And lithium quartz,  
A moss green altar cloth   
Stained with red wine in one corner.

Breathy whispers on the wind.  
Long, loving caresses  
Trailing shivers down spines  
Like melting ice.

Laughter, dark and maniacal.  
Silver knives grating against a whetstone,  
Fly agaric hidden among  
Shiitake and oyster mushrooms.

Dirty words, dirty thoughts.  
Spiders and bees beneath layers of skin,  
Rose quartz and leather straps,  
Bare skin bleeding, rubbed raw by ropes.

Howling rage.  
Wolves singing a song of pain,  
Nails against chalkboards and teeth on flesh,  
Whirlwinds of devil-fire and burning feathers.

Suggestions of self-loathing.  
Oily tides rippling around bare feet,  
Stormwinds dragging dead bodies out to sea  
To be devoured.

Sometimes, I whisper into the Void.  
Sometimes, the Void whispers back.


	10. The Devil Walks Among Us

At first glance, you’d never have known he was the Devil.  
He looked just like an ordinary teenage girl, you see—  
Scruffy at the edges but ultimately well put-together  
With his slim black pants, black dress shirt,   
And a red and black checkered tie,  
A fitted taupe military jacket slung unbuttoned over one shoulder,  
And, of course, a pair of round, gold-rimmed sunglasses  
Hanging from the first unused buttonhole on his coat.  
But when you looked a little deeper, he was undoubtedly still the Devil,  
Horns, tail, sharp eyebrows, and all.  
His eyes gleamed with malice and the light of the stars he had killed  
And he laughed loud enough to strike God from the sky.  
But if you looked closer still, you’d see in his soul—  
For the Devil indeed has a soul—  
You’d see lonely dreams and his scars and his fears,   
And the sadness the years   
Unkindly forced down on his shoulders.


	11. King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL TODAY!!!!!!  
> So yeah.  
> This is the poem I wrote to recite during our graduation ceremony. Hopefully, I won't die of anxiety in front of 200 people.   
> I admit, I stole a few lines from some of my older poems, but it's just because I had thirty minutes to write this and run it by my teachers otherwise I wouldn't be able to perform.

Four years ago, we entered a new world.  
We were children, then, with stars in our eyes,  
And, as children are wont to do,  
We danced together amid life’s flames  
Unaware of the damage we caused  
To one another  
But most of all,  
To ourselves.  
When all was said and done,  
We no longer remembered who broke who.

Today, we will walk from one world into another,  
No longer children, but still seeing stars,  
Feeling everything and nothing all at once.  
Flames destroy,  
But they give life, too.  
We picked ourselves up from the ashes  
And rebuilt,  
Finding meaning in patterns  
Formed by wind and smoke.

Four years ago, I entered this world,  
Afraid of what the future might bring.  
But it would be foolish to lie and to say  
That I did not leave it a king.


End file.
